Niall Clerkin

I was lying in my hammock reading Paul Theroux as the sun slowly set on 2009. Our hut, high above the rocks, in full sea breeze was a great place to feel the evening fall into night. A bottle of Singha (possibly my 3rd) in one hand and my little travel speakers doing their best with Pearl Jam’s “10″ beside me. Elaine was inside getting dolled up for the night to come and I was feeling nostalgic. Eddie Vedder rasping “Why Go home? Why go home?” had me thinking “Nil aon tintean mar do thintean fein”, an Irish equivalent of home is where the heart (hearth) is. This had me wondering where the home was? and self indulgently feeling that we take the home with us. There were two of us in an apartment in Chapelizod and now there are 2 of us on this trip. No different. Here I was lazing in a hammock on the cusp of possibly the most infamous New Years Eve party in the world and I’m feeling self indulgent?? “I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star” Eddie Vedder again reminding me that this is some place to be. My friends at home in the freezing cold, the harshest winter in 25 years I read. Surely this must be the life. Certainly it is a life, and for the moment my life, but probably just an exciting few moments in the larger tableau. The sky was clearing, Elaine was ready and the moon full and bright. Rock and Roll.

The full moon Dec 31st 2009

We were definitely late to the party. 9pm? There was big big noise as we tramped through the woods and down the rocky roads towards Haad Rinn beach. A mix of several different impossibly loud dance tracks vying for top-spot on the wind. As we descended into the town the crowds quickly became apparent. Teaming out of the shops & bars were 20 somethings like ourselves (!) ferrying buckets, liquor bottles and beer to the beach. We popped into the first shop, bought a few Singhas, a bottle of water and a pack of cigs, as you do, and headed for the beach.

Beach & Bucket, The new B&B

The beach is a long cove, looking out at the moon with rocky outcrops book-ending the strand. We started at Paradise Bungalows & The Rock Bar at the low end. Paradise was home to the first Full Moon party back in 88 or 89, long before it grew to be the behemoth it is today so it was a good place to start. At the Rock bar there was an 5 piece rock band, throwing out Pink Floyd, Guns ‘n Roses and would you believe it, Pearl Jam. Giving it loads to a dancing audience. That was to be it for live music unfortunately. Every other bar was pumping out trance, psych-trance, cheesy dance, something dance, ham sandwich dance. Do you think I know the difference? We walked the length of the beach with a mojito bucket for fuel, checking out each venue and crowd. Drop In dance, Bayshore dance, Tommys dance. What struck me most was that we were able to do that. I had been expecting such a massive drunken drugged up dirty melee that I hadn’t considered that this could just be an over-sized beach party. Loads of people threw themselves in our way as we strolled, starting random conversations, high-fiving for no reason at all, the mood was high. We climbed the stone steps to Mountain Bar at the top of the beach. As we walked towards, it seemed that there impossibly large numbers of legs walking up and down these steps. Both directions, it could be great or terrible. Halfway up there were turns left and right, to terraces on stilts, more again further up and internal staircases too. Where did they all go? It was such a labyrinthine venue it put me in mind of Escher’s optical illusions.

Escher's Relativity

We stayed for a while on the uppermost terrace watching the party stretched out below. A few fancy looking speed boats had anchored in the bay with a some well heeled revelers, which the party goers largely ignored. Too cool for school.

The blurry view from above

Back on the beach with vodka buckets we enjoyed the fire-shows and the countdown to midnight. HAPPY NEW YEAR. We were delighted be there, and together, as a great fireworks show started around us. Perfectly placed between Drop In bar & Paradise, we had the best of the shows. The noise from these firecrackers was tremendous and they had 2 and even 3 tiered rockets drizzling their fire on the happy crowds.

fireworks

Everybody was high but I didn’t see any drugged out people, I didn’t even smell any weed. Dancing restarted and continued unabated until sunrise. We tried our hands, or more precisely our feet at the fire skipping rope. I may have singed a few hairs down around the ankle region. I am not sure if it happened the first or second time those canny rope swingers took the legs from under me. All in good fun of course.

The skipping rope of death

Out on the street again hunting food it struck me that this was Feile ‘94, a weekend festival in Ireland with the Prodigy, Rage Against the Machine and I cant remember who else. Certainly it felt no different, and that was no bad thing. Just young folks up for a party, well behaved in the main, having fun, gabbling like idiots and not being able to find their tents. Flip flops were lying everywhere on the beach, given up to the beats of the music. I helped myself to a left size 9 having broken mine throwing myself on my knees making pleadings for a successful 2011 rugby world cup.

jello shots which may be responsible for my broken flip flop

The stages at the various bars were packed with dancers, everyone looking for their few moments on the podium. It wasn’t the “pretty people” either. I have this terribly unfair but deeply held belief that if you’re going to get up there you better look good doing it. Not here. Oh no, not Koh Phangan. If you’re a fat headed Russian with red y-fronts feel free to strip to said item and swing yourself around like Duece Biggolo. If you’re an overweight french mademoiselle in a sarong feel free to let that belly hang out. This is REVENGE OF THE LESSER SPOTTED BODIES and you’ve been invited.

We danced to 6am when most folks were heading off for the after parties. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. Happy New Year folks, it’s 2010.

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We decided to head back to Sairee on Koh Tao for Christmas. It is was a place we knew and liked so would take very little organising, and besides we could go diving again with a hefty 30% discount. We arrived  on the morning of the 23rd, wrecked from our 2 day jaunt for the visa and the travel from Bangkok. On the ferry from Chumphon we met one of the Thais working with our dive school, Coral Grand, and he offered us a lift from the pier to our accommodation. Familiarity working its magic already.   We had pre-booked at SBC Resort, a fan room similar to that we had used in October, however when we arrived they had no rooms. Some people had elected to stay on and we had to make do with a very hot little wooden hut for our first night. No big deal, we dumped our stuff and headed out to re-acquaint ourselves with the village. One of the first faces we saw was that of Conor (from Belfast), a musician we had met before, smiling at us from a sign for a gig. So he was still here. He could be worth a chat I thought, if only for the knowledge of where to go for Turkey in 2 days time.

Sairee Beach

Everything looked good around Sairee. The shopkeepers were still smiling, “Sawadeeka”, restaurants still had mango and sticky rice on the menu, the streets were tidy and swept and there were a liberal number of advertising posters and banners for Christmas Eve parties. The beach was as pretty and kept as ever, the fishing boats and longtail taxis moored close to shore, and the dive boats, floating advertisements were numerous. I had called this Island the “75 percenter” but the truth is I was happy and excited to be back, so I vowed to give the place another chance to make an A grade.

Early Sevening at Sairee beach

As we walked around that evening we bumped into Conor. He looked wrecked. Gone was the smiley Belfast head of our first meeting and in its place was the face of a man in come down mode. Sweaty, bulging eyes and grey skin, there was no candle left for him to burn. He remembered us of course but he was unable to talk. Almost hyper, almost incoherent, we passed on and I hoped for his sake this was temporary. All the adverts were for Christmas Eve parties & Christmas Eve dinners, but we didn’t want turkey on Christmas Eve. Sure how crazy is that? We figured that they were just trying to get business in the door, and the same foods would be available on the big day so we elected to stroll among the different parties, find the best fireworks and keep the big money for the Christmas Day.

Fireshow

First up was the Fishbowl, part of Bans Diving School. Bans is the biggest Dive operator on the Island, with a reputation for production line attitudes, but their offices are very swish and the Fishbowl is a pretty decent beach bar. At this location they had a stage on the beach for live music and djs, be-decked in fairy lights and a fire show. On stage when we arrived was none other than our old buddy Conor. I was very curious to see how he’d fare so we headed down to the beach and bought a couple of beers. He was driving through his his set like a man rushing home in the rain; Without the warranted care. Songs were just being poured out like a big bucket of Sangsom whiskey and topped up with some redbull. I felt sorry for the guy, he clearly needed to refocus his energies and find his mojo again.

We headed for AC Bar, next on the strip.On the beach we passed a very inventilve Xmas message dug from the sand and inlaid with candles.

bah humbug

AC tends to attract a lot of locals, and not in an integrationist “Hey we’re all people partying together” way but more in the “Hello Farang, you buy me drink ; wink wink” way. Not really our cup of tea. Of course it’s not all like that. On the steps down to the fire show on the beach there were loads of holidaymakers dancing and chatting, singing and whooping, without a bother in world and totally oblivious to the skinny girls on the dance floor. AC bar had prepared a fiery Xmas message ready for burning at the appropriate hour and a big big stack of fireworks.

Fireshow

Fireworks in Asia are interesting to me. Practically illegal in Ireland, where warnings abound about burning hands and missing eyes, I have not even handled one. Young men in Asia happily set off dustbin sized rockets from their laps*. Typically they are stored on the beach in piles and set off amongst the party goers to large cheers. The fact that there are usually fireshows involving swinging dancing and throwing flaming sticks around and big cans of petrol to fuel same shows, doesn’t seem to upset a soul. We had a quick cocktail, the aptly named “Sex on the beach”, though there was a “fire starter” on the menu and nipped next door to Maya.

Very similar in layout and texture to AC, the Maya bar was playing a softer brand of dance music. I don’t know if it was the absence of these hard beats, but there was also a notable absence of bar girls and more than a sprinkling of couples among the dancing. Perhaps we had found our home for the night. The staff here were also building their Christmas message to burn in the sea, and as we arrived were launching hundreds of floating candles that the sea would slowly take out. At 12 am they lit the sign, Happy Xmas 2009, to cheers and the fireworks started booming off around us.

Ah shucks

The show was spectacular, maybe not coordinated in the European sense, but 2 competing bars with a large armoury of fireworks can put on quite the show. Multi-coloured & multi-patterned rockets exploding all around us, a cacophony of exploding crickets. A large barreled rocket suddenly went off on the ground, a malfunction 3 or 4 feet from us. Instinct had our arms and hands guarding our faces and we backed away, like others, to a more respectful distance. After a brief dance around in relief in a “Did you see that? I nearly died” sort of way, the boys went back to their jobs. We were in a little bit of shock, I had been hit by shrapnel and singed. This reminded us instantly of Koh Chang when walking past a fire show outside Om Club, a fiery chain had broken, flown off into the air and dropped behind Elaine as she walked. She didn’t even know until she felt the heat. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, as my ol’ mammy used to say.

Half an hour later it was all forgotten and the fireworks were still going off, the fire show was still burning and swinging, the candles were out to sea in pretty patterns and we were enjoying a big jug of Tao’s finest cocktails.We danced until the early hours, fully content in our lonesome beach side Christmas.

In “The Tao of Pooh” gentle Pooh is afflicted by his inability to settle, always looking for the honey. In Koh Tao of Thailand I think he would have found a bit of peace.

Chillin at Fizz

Christmas Day we didn’t find that turkey dinner but we didn’t mind. We skyped the folks, chilled for a while at fizz and had a few beers at Dreadlocks Reggae bar. Dreadlocks is just off the main track in the village, but hidden and always quiet. We chatted and smoked with the Thai rastas for a few hours, our own Van Morrison playing in the background. How much more integrationist can you get? Bar girls be damned.

A day or two later again, we were back in the sea spotting rays, banner fish, rainbows and the like,  a large trigger fish made a charge at Elaine and our Divemaster had to make a charge at it. The dives were brilliant and I am pleased to announce that we are getting better at this Scuba lark even though I almost ran out of air…. Clearly not hot air though, that lasts forever.

*May be a slight exaggeration

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When you enter Thailand via a land border you get a 15 day visa, as opposed to the nice chunky 30 day visa you get at the airport. Consequently when Elaine & I crossed the border from Cambodia, we knew we would have to find a way of renewing our visa before Christmas. As the plan was to head south to Koh Tao again, to dive over Christmas, we thought it’d be best to make for the Malaysian land border, or even from the island of Lipe to Langkawi. This would have necessitated an 8 hour additional journey in each direction.

At the long-tail Pier in Ranong

A bright spark in a travel agency in Bangkok suggested Burma to us. Though its a fairly closed society, at Ranong/Victoria Point they will take day trippers renewing their visa from Thailand. I set about doing some research and it was very difficult to find recent internet confirmation of this. There were a few blogs and travel discussions but all a few years old. Still, we garnered enough to feel 70% confident that the option was open to us and organised a night bus to Ranong (instead of Chumphon, the jumping off point for Koh Tao).

Monks in a boat

We arrived at 6am and organised a taxi to the pier where Thai Customs & Immigration are located. I had a quick word with the ticket office at the bus station and got them to look after our rucksacks until we returned. The taxi driver was familiar with the procedure (a major relief), dropped us to the right place, told us where to go and arranged to pick us up afterward. Being almost a hour early we sat in a local shack and drank coffee that would not only support a spoon, would suck it back in as you tried to remove it.

En route up the estuary

At 7.30 the Immigration Office opened and we queued with the 5 or 6 other early arrivals. After getting stamped out of  Thailand we set about crossing the estuary that divides the countries at this point. This is as simple as a 20 minute long-tail boat ride with a couple of stops at immigration & customs of both countries , 10 dollars in the back of the passport to the Burmese official and popping back into the long-tail for the return journey.

On the run from the Burmese

In our few minutes in Burma we were offered tobacco, spirits and Viagra on the cheap. There were great views from the boat, both out towards the sea and further up the estuary. Both on the Thai side and the Burmese side the locals are fishermen so there were lots of boats, and lots of houses stilted above the water, with a boat pulled up beneath.

Still in Thailand

The longtail & taxis from the Ranong bus station came in at 900 baht, the dollars about 700 and the extra bus to Chumpon from Ranong almost 300. All in all our extra visa cost us a mornings travel, some uncertainty and about 20 Euro each. Flying in to get our 30 days would have cost us and extra 150, or thereabouts. Now that’s quality budgeting.

Last point in thailand

We were back in Chumphon before lunchtime, and organised for our ferry to Koh Tao in no time at all.

Burma

Victoria Point, Burma

View from the boat at Victoria Point

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The bus from Sihanoukville to Trat in Thailand should be a fairly simple procedure. It’s 6 hours inclusive of an hour at the Cambodian/Thai border. The course of true love never runs smooth and instead of being in Trat at 2.30 as planned we didn’t get there until nearly 6. The main cause of this was just pure sloppy trading. The border crossing was simple enough, just smile and nod at the men with guns, acknowledge the signs for the death penalty and remember what a lucky little westerner you are.

On the Thai side we were herded into groups depending on destination. There were only 4 of us taking the relatively short journey to Trat, and so we were not a priority. They left us waiting for a minibus for a good hour and then changed us into another minibus somewhere across town and eventually after much messing around and 2 hours late we got back on the road. This delay meant that we could not choose a follow on destination at the bus station as planned, but would be spending the night in Trat.

Toilet breaks are frequent

At the border we had met Mark (from Limerick), a Divemaster working in Cambodia on his way to Trat to collect a compression valve for the companies air compressor. His Thai friend La was bringing it down from Bangkok. Now that we were staying in Trat we joined them for a beer and a spot of dinner.

Mark & La

This was a rare chance for myself and Elaine to get insight into local food, so we dragged the two of them to the nightmarket and started doing the rounds of the food stalls. La explained all sorts of dishes to us including eggy cakes & desserts, pigs innards, spicy pork dough balls and much more. She relished in the role of gourmet tourist adviser. Eventually we settled on a group of dishes that included pig stomach stuffed with pickled vegetables, spicy ground pork with peppers, morning glory (water spinach & garlic), veg in oyster gravy and the obligatory rice. Can you say FEAST? A couple of big bottles of Chang and Rick Stein is your uncle Bob.

From the Ferry to Koh Chang

We hadn’t really known where we would go next and were leaving it up to chance, but it is only 30 minutes from Trat by ferry to Koh Chang, the so-called Elephant Island, so we said “why the hell not?”. There are 3 or 4 distinct villages on the island, one catering for families,and monied tourists, one for tranquility chasers and another for the backpacking types. No prizes for guessing where we went.

There is a warning in the Lonely Planet guide regarding the Taxi Mafia on Chang and they are not wrong. They have incredibly high fares set in their Song-taews (Taxi Pickup Trucks), squeeze an unbelievable amount of people in, at no group discounts and all drive together in convoys. If you argue about fares, as I did of course, you are off or you pick your pride (and bags) back off the ground and pay the fare. They even start the journey and then pull in at a quiet spot to collect the money. Thus if you refuse you are in the middle of nowhere, and the other Song-taew drivers know not to pick you up. After I had embarrassingly rejoined our particular chain gang, an English bloke called Gavin told me that they had wanted to support my stand, but needed the lift so what could they do.

The Koh Chang Mafia

Coincidently I met Gavin & his Polish girlfriend Aggie a week later in Bangkok (at May Kaidees wonderful restaurant) and he told me that on their return journey, the hostel manager had dropped them almost the whole way to the ferry port. The Song-taew drivers that pulled up charged them 500baht for the rest of the journey. Even by their own outrageous fares it should have been 100baht. They had seen Gavin & Aggie’s free lift as an attempt to avoid the standard fares and therefore an affront to their monopoly. I’m thinking of investing all my money into a free bus system to ruin the bastards……..

Lonely Beach

Let us forget about the taxi drivers and picture a winding village road 200 yards long. There are 5 or 6 shops, restaurants and little hostels dotted on either side as the road winds up a low hill. Off this main road there are tracks uphill into the mountain with stilted bungalows surrounded by palms and other greenery, backing into the rain forest. To the other side of the road there are stoned tracks amid the palm trees descending lightly to a long stretch of sand, Lonely Beach. The trees are hung with fairy lights and cluttered on the tracks are beach huts, cabanas and little bars. There are large wooden terraces stretching over the rocks supported on stilts, directly facing the sunset on the gulf sea.

Bungalows at Lonely Beach

In short this place is everything Sihanoukville isn’t. It is a rustic pixieland made from tinsel, dried flowers and multi-coloured sticky back paper. With live music on every corner, hammocks in the bars, green curries in the restaurants and friendly friendly people, I got to visit my own personal heaven.

Sunset from one of the decks

Stone Free bar, named for the king of all things rock&blues Mr Jimi Hendrix, is a welcoming & warm venue. 2 brothers run the bar and the love of music runs the brothers. Ricky Stone has been playing music there for 7 years. He came from Bangkok and never left. He plays in every other bar too but Stone Free remains his spiritual home. We saw a lot of Ricky over our days at Lonely Beach and enjoyed it all. He introduced us around to bar men and musicians in a very friendly/forgetful way. I played guitar at a bar launch party with him (Joy Cafe) and another day, sang a couple of songs in Stone Free, accompanied by one of the brothers on tambourine. Can I say heaven again?

Joy Cafe Launch Party

Ciaran, a Vet from Longford threw in a few tunes also, to much cheering or jeering from Joanne, a Vet from Cork. Who knew that the world of animal husbandry was so musical?

The beach itself is a sandy cove about a mile long, but deep and with the stillest shallow waters I have ever seen. No rips or discernible currents, just beautiful clear waters and a light cooling breeze. Not so much of a breeze that you couldn’t play cards but just enough to cool & soothe. Even the restaurant & bar at the beach front (Nature Rocks) was good value and with a much loved menu. We met so many good people who didn’t have a leaving date, just no plans….

And why the hell not say I? It was almost perfect.

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At first glance Koh Tao is a little paradise lost, and found again. At first glance at its laid back beach bars, restaurant terraces, pedestrian areas  and sleeping dogs, the naive European may think they have landed somewhere special, and it would be if it was but it isn’t, if you catch my drift. This island is a few baht short of a room for the night, a few beers short of a hangover. This island is the 75 per-center.

The 100% view from our Balcony at Coral View

75% is the mark that every one is aiming for in the scuba, the scuba business that is the mainstay of the entire islands economy and no one else sees any reason to out do it. It is too bloody hot for hard work. Having put the boot in early it should be said that 75% of paradise is not half bad. In fact it is three-quarters good. The food is good here, just not quite good enough for me to write about, the accommodation is decent but it aint Chiang Mai (see earlier post), the people are friendly in the main, but there is that hostile percentage.

He said hello, I took his picture

An interesting observation is the dogs life here on Koh Tao. Each resident dog seems to have been given a 40 yard holding to patrol. The protective pooches will pick you up at one end of their patch and see you safely through to the next patch where another will take over. A stray gets moved on like the littlest hobo. Not unlike the k9 dynamic is the white mans food chain. There are long term resident dive instructors & bar men who look down on the gap year travelers and  cooler than thou travelers who look down on blow in week by week dive tourists, and the dive tourists look down on the snorkelers…. ad infinitum…. Everyone has their level.

1.5 litres of bottled water is 12 baht in Bangkok, 20 baht here. Laundry 40 baht per kilo as opposed to a city slickers 30. Are the clothes any cleaner I wonder? You could pay 1000 baht here for sun cream, but a bottle of Singha is only 50. Stay indoors then and get the beers in.

Sai Daeng beach at Coral View

After our Scuba experience we decided to go remote. Some friends of ours, had stayed at a remote beach huts & bar combo on the far south of the Island and loved it, so we upped sticks and jumped in the back of the relevant pick up truck. Jeremy Clarkson and pals once drove a Toyota Hilux all the way to the North Pole, another time they failed to kill the same vehicle by dropping it off a cliff, into the sea, and setting it on fire. The road to Coral View on the southern tip of the Island (Shark Island views) is every bit as challenging, but true to form those canny Japanese made it comfortable. I had never before been in a 4×4, traction on, in first gear, nose in the air on dirt roads but can safely say that if it’s in a hilux, you’re going to be just fine.

The remote location meant one thing to the owners of this place. No competition, there wasn’t a shop accessible for 30 minutes. So Water was now 30 baht, that is 250% of the price in Bangkok. They don’t even do that in Cork.

Lets put the cost differential aside and take a look at the views though. It is a small cove, rising steeply into the rock hill side, a broken coral beach with fish life from the water line, islands huts built on stilts and chilled people.

The living quarters

Our hut was made from roughly sawn timbers, on brick mounts, a cold shower in the bathroom, a decent bed with mozzie net and a nice balcony. There were only 10 or 12 huts in the collection and a few more expensive air-con rooms in the dive building. I had a few beers with the English Chap who set up the Diving School only a year ago. Looking for a change of life he took the risk and bought the equipment & boats needed, hired an experienced instructor and started booking. After 1 year of business he says he now knows it wasn’t a risk at all.  http://www.coralview.net/

Long tail boat at Sai Daeng

We only stayed 2 nights at this remote location, it would appear that not having a 7-11 to run to was more of an inconvenience than we had forecast. However we did a lot of swimming, head down & goggles on, chasing shoals of fish all over the bay, and loved it. I did a few longer swims at pace to  make me feel like I was still getting my gym fix, which kinda worked.

Back up to Sairee for a 3 night stay in some cheap but clean & comfortable rooms. We had a landlady who giggled uncontrollably every time I spoke to her so I would stick my head into her office a couple of times a day and wish her a good morning or afternoon, as appropriate, just for the smile.

The main street at Sairee Village

On the first night I honed in on an acoustic guitar playing group sitting on one of the balconies and invited ourselves into their evening. I knocked out a U2 number and a couple of other tunes to suitably impress them and got on with the business of sharing stories and drinking beer. Conor from Belfast plays tunes in one of the local nightspots 4 nights a week, and Benjamin is a guitar teacher from Wisconsin, after moving here with his girl Lindy (who has no discernible guitar related skill). Conor is pretty good and does lovely versions of Irish folk ballads with a creamy voice, otherwise hidden by his wide Belfast brogue. Benjamin is too pissed to do much of anything.  Later in the night Conor tries to get me up at the gig and do a song but I suffered an unfamiliar crisis of confidence and decided it’d be better to be yellow than crap.

Sairee Beach not long after high tide

The next 2 days we kept more to ourselves and read on the beach, ate well and had a few singhas in the evening. Batteries re-charged (from what you say?) and ready to face the big mad city once more.

Even with my cost related cyncism, my baht counting obsession, I liked the place, mostly. I’ll give it 7.5 out of 10.

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We decided that it might be a good idea to head to Koh Tao (world famous for its diving) and try out this scuba lark. Just because we could. To be honest neither of us and had any great yearning to be scuba divers, nor any great knowledge of what we might see but it seemed like something to do, and it would avoid all future conversations that start with “You didnt dive in koh tao?”. So I wrote to 3 of the bigger dive schools on Sairee Beach and tried to get a deal. Free accomodation & 10% off course fees later we choose http://www.kohtaocoral.com/.

The docks at Champhon, dawn

Getting to Koh Tao involved successive night buses and a ferry, 38 hours including a day kicking our heels in Bangkok. The highlight was a breakfast in Chumphon (while waiting for the ferry) of deep fried pastries that were being rolled & cooked by a street seller from 6am. I queued up with the locals, some buying 20 of these little fellas for a family breakfast, and was rewarded for my bravery with light donut-like pastries that sugared up very very nicely.

We landed at Mae Haad, utterly wrecked on a Wednesday morning at 9.30am. True to agreement there was a pickup truck from the dive school there to pick us up. They do this to stop competitors pinching customers, it’s a cut throat business scuba, rife with sharks. We are in reception with a room key in our hands at 10, we start that same day at 3. Bloody hell I need to sleep, but we went to the beach instead.

Elaine & a random longtail boat

At 3 pm we are in classroom of 11 students, this will be 2 classes, as yet undecided. I want first pick, the swiss look nice but it turns out not to be up to me. All the irish in one class, the melting pot of world races in the other. It seems a little racist to segregate us but we console each other with the idea that it’s because we will progress much faster than the mongrel bunch. Niall Elaine Mick Paul & Henry. 2 brothers & a cousin from the parish of Aghamore in County Mayo, a place I once knew very well. Henry dropped out, we were nolonger the famous five.

Paul & Mick

Class turned out to be quite intense. They squeeze what normal people would absorb over 6 weeks of classes into 3.5 days. We had no idea it would be this intense, and its not only the book based knowledge that seems a lot to cover there is also the learning of how to prepare, use and care for different equipment. It is true that almost nobody ever fails the PADI but I think this is because their pass mark is 75%. 90% would be better. The first rule of Scuba is you do not hold your breath underwater, the second rule of Scuba is you do not hold your breath underwater.

On morning 2 while we had a 3.5hr pool session getting to know our equipment, my head learned what it is to be less hairy than bafore (to put it nicely). Now I understand benny hill with a hankerchief on his head. It is not that my head was sunburnt and peeling per se, more that the intense sun focussed all its energies into drying out my grey matter in such a way that it would take 2 full days of numbing incapacitation to re-hydrate it. This, while I was supposed to be learning how to scuba. But I am stubborn and will not be beaten by pain, stupidity or anything self inflicted. Elaine must surely have tired of my hand wringing, head holding and general “oh my poor head”-edness but I perciveered and she did her best not to tell me to shut up, bless her cotton socks

Longfin Banner fish

It turns out that diving is fun, its like watching Blue Planet, some fish are in shoals, some foraging for food and some protecting their turf. It is great it be privy to this underwater world. We were 18 metres down on morning 3, when our instructor Julian makes the sign for Shark. Basically a hand raised against the forehead representing a fin. What a Shark? Where?

A Bull shark similar to the one we saw

All 4 of us newbies had the same reaction, to go closer for a better look. A 3m Bull shark, the 3rd most agressive species of shark we got told later was 12 m below us on the sea bed. The shark was very agitated, circling and hitting the sea bed as if in a strop. Julian later told me that sharks sometimes stun their prey against the ground to make it easier to eat. Cool as the shark was and I mention it here because it is a bit unusual to be swimming around such creatures, the colouful tropical fish were much more interesting. Banner fish, rainbow fish, clown fish, coral gardens swaying slowly with the currents we generated, it really was rather beautiful. Decision made, we will be doing this again.

Sairee beach

The men from Mayo headed off to Koh Phangan, the Swiss were going to Cambodia, the English to Chiang Mai. Even our instructor is learning Spanish. After 3 years in Koh Tao he thinks Central America might be interesting. Thats the way it is over here. Every one is en route, nobody is home.

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Thailands second city doesnt suffer from Cork syndrome, thank God. There are no chips on the republican shoulders here. A 13th century city centre (Capital of Lanna) with hundreds of temples and surrounded by a complete moat & some standing walls, it has great charm. Inside the walls almost all the streets run parallel & perpendicular like a modern day grid city, which is quite interesting. Beyond the walls there are more fluid corners and a fluid relaxed way of life. Everyone here says “be happy everyday”. Its quite endearing really and the contrast is so marked that it reflects poorly on the recent memory of Bangkok.

Our pre-arranged Hostel, the Banilah was a cutie pie of a place. Over furnished with knick-knacks, comfy rockers, free internet, great coffee and loads of pet cats we thought we’d hit the golden fountain. The room unfortunately was a mozzie heavan with a billion marching ants en route to somewhere unspecified and a few roaches. It had to change.

We went walkabout the first day, had our usual rice & hot sour soups for lunch and walked a crazy distance in flipflops. I tend to walk like I’ve just gotten off a horse when i’m in flip flops, it’s surely a comical sight to behold. After getting the layout of the city and a feel for the place we thought we might head back to the hostel, contact some folks via the tinterweb and chill for the evening. No No No No No No No. 8pm closing for the cute cat loving domestic bliss selling caffine dispensing communal area. You what? We climbed inside our mozzie net and resolved to move the next day.

Up bright and early we resolved to tour a few hostels, find something nice and book in. Unfortunately we couldnt get a good room for that night and had to book for the night after. Where we did book however, the http://www.chiangmaithaihouse.com/ was stunning. 8 Euro for a double room, a pool, a brilliant restaurant and the best people you could meet. An absolute gem.

Not to mention a really good english movie station so we didnt have to be out and about every evening.

So what did we do in Chiang Mai? We did some general sightseeing, copped a buddha or 2, went to the markets, ate lots of street food and generally chilled out for the next 3 days. We went to Chiang Mai Zoo to see the baby panda. Born in June he is not out in the open yet so we only saw him on the screen but we did see mommy & daddy panda chomping on some bamboo and generally looking very cool and laid back, as you would expect in the Lanna kingdom. Both of us being big fans of Pandas we enjoyed it like only kids can.  Elaines Pic below:

After that we saw all the usual suspects including tigers, elephants, lions, giraffes, loads of different monkeys, gibbons and a Malayan Sun Bear except a whole lot closer than you usually get to be. We got loads of great animal photos which I will be adding once I’ve gone through them. I got to give an elephant a pat and Elaine got to feed the Jaguar – Ain’t it cool?

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This is a 14 hour train ride to the capital of the North, a city of temples surrounded by jungle. We booked second class aircon, which consists of comfy seats that convert into sleepiong births, 1 up 1 down once the witching hour has passed. Its a communal sleeper experience and one I was looking forward to.

We taxi’d to the train station (have you seen our backpacks?) and made sure to be there in plenty of time. An hour before the train was due so we sat on the floor with our packs and read for a while. There were plenty of other travellers doing the same thing.

On the train on time and into our seats, no beer today thank you very much. The seats are large and comfortable. Every thing seems quite cosy. There were good luggage racks for storage and dodgy bathrooms on every carriage. The next carriage to ours was a dining car and smoking area but no ac just big open windows. I had a few chats with random neighbours to get advice on where to go and more importantly where to avoid. Everyone out here is an information vampire and the more you have to give, the more new friends you make (lol).  The train was delayed leaving for an hour, no reason why. This is not a good thing on a train for several hundred people where toilets are direct chures to the track………

Anyways we were off, a quick dinner of fried rice and soup hit the spot and we enjoyed the early city views.  There seemed to be endless beers being ferried past us to weary travellers but we stuck to our night off.

The attendant came around and nimbly started transforming the seats into births and by 10.30 the train was getting ready to sleep. Wtih earplugs & eye masks we were well prepared. I read for a bit under my lamp and hit the hay.

I woke up at 6am and thought it might be a good time to head to the rear of the train and catch the dawn for some super photos so I grabbed the camera and careful not to wake anyone I headed back through 10 carriages. There wasn’t another soul up and about. I threw back the last door and sat on the steps looking at the track appear beneath me. It was a grey morning, misty and I hoped the sun would rise into my pictures of the passing jungle but unfortunately it wasnt to be.  I say there and had a cigarette instead thinking how cool it was all the same.  Still some of the photos came out alright.

On my way back through the carriages I met an older Thai woman, Molly was mid 60’s returning from the US after 30 years. Her American husband had died and she was going home to Chiang Mai to set up a guest house. I sat with Molly while she had her breakfast and she pointed out plants and houses in the forests to me.

A lovely woman she wanted to buy me breakfast but I was waiting on the navigator so I declined and just had a coffee. At the end of her meal Molly handed me a sugared buttery roll and told me I should have it as she didn’t like them. I bit into the lovely pastry and declared it fantastic.  I know, Molly smiles. The old coot had just wanted to give me a present. Thanks Molly – that’s her on the left.

Myself and the Navigator had brekkie of rice soup and coffee with eau de diesel fumes and an open window. It was great. Welcome to Chiang Mai read the station sign.

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6.30am. Wtf am I doing up?

It was day 3 and we had paid up for a tour to the River Kwai, the Tiger Temple and some random waterfall. What I hadn’t realised on booking was that it would take 17 weeks drive to get there in a cramped, barely air conditioned bucket of a van (the Nissan Crapster I think is its name), that i wouldn’t be feeling the morning love and that I wouldnt have time for a pre-trip coffee. No coffee aghhhhhhh

Still, we were first in the van. Go Irish.

Filling up the crapster proved to be a neat trick in international relations. First the Chinese couple who turned out to be brother & sister (but soooo close, think picking food from each others teeth), then the unbelievably youthful Japanese, whom at 34 & 60 looked about 22 & 40. Go Aya, Go Kiki. Then squeezed in behind in the backseat of the bus, usually reserved for monks, the 3 american lads and upfront with the guide, the elusive Johan from Finland. It turned out the gentle fellows behind us were Canadian (thank god) and only one of them is a monk, but he’s ginger too so that makes up for it. Welcome to all our co-stars today Short, Hot Angry, Johan, Kiki, Aya and the randomly incestuous whose names I failed to get.

First stop, the largest of 3 graveyards housing allied soldiers who died in the building of the Thai-Burmese railway as POWs. A beautifully kept reminder of tragic times. 6000 souls in the one we visited. Every date of death I checked seemed to fall in a 10 month period of late 43 & early 44. 16000 POWs died on this project in total and 100,000 asians whom the Japanese were using as slaves.

This really is a well looked after cemetary, and a busy tourist spot. We are a morbid lot, are we not ?

The Thais make a big deal of never having being colonised as were Vietnam & Cambodia but they were over run by Japan and forced to declare war on the allies so I am not sure about the validity of the claim but I have resisted bringing it up. I’m good like that.

Next up was the Jeath War Museum (The title standing for Japan, England, Australia, Thailand & Holland). The story of the railway, the famous bridge and those who died. It was the most basic museum since that time Moses found some stone tablets and tried to start a cult. Having said that, there were bombs, there were jeeps, newspapers, photos, machine guns and a decent chronological account of the war here so its a thumbs up from me and a thumbs up from him. I sent the Canucks looking for the Multimedia room. Did you ever find it Mitch?

So to the bridge, the famous bridge. I really did want to walk over the bridge. Why is that? Moved by the stories and the needless deaths? I was. Intrigued by the engineering techniques used in the mid 20th century? A passing interest. Something about a movie I saw as a kid? Now your talking. Like every other sap tourist drinking in the stories of death & neglect I saw the movie. I want to walk the bridge. Monkey see Monkey do. Education was wasted on me.

I still liked it though.

Back to the crapster, the mystery machine, the tardis, like ants we knew our place, our jobs and goals, and that any one of us might be sacrificed for the good of the tribe at any time. We started talking canuck. 3 Vancouver bartenders on a secret intelligence operation (to find some). Jesse supports single moms, he gets my vote.

We arrived at the death railway station, sticky & hot but bouyed by the comraderie that goes with having neighbours whom everyone loves to hate. The death railway is the line that the POWs built and we were just sampling about 45 minutes of it.

It was 11.52 in the morning so not quite noon……..We all had a beer anyway. Thats 5 Singha for the CelticCanadians & a chang for the Japanese.  Comment was passed about the earlyness of the hour but we had been up a long time, and it was in the interests of international relations. So we had another. Then we got on the train & had another (cheers Mitch). There were stereotypes to be supported and by god we were going to support them.

The train was great fun, regardless of the inebriation that was underway. They even give little death railway certificates as modelled below :

The views absolutely stellar, the train clambered high through the hills on bridges & supports, across rivers, through marshes. I got some great photos. There are no silly safety regulations so i was able to descend from one of the doors and hang on to the rail and great some really good photos.

Hanging from a hand rail with one hand with a camera in the other crossing ravines is surprisingly easy.

After the train it was to a local beauty spot. A waterfall in the forest where thais go to hang out, in the shade rather than in the glare of the angry sun god.

A pretty cool waterfall, not out of this world but 2 shallow pools and enough volume of water to refresh a travel weary man. Into the shorts. 3 white bodies trotted up through the stones and the trees to much hilarity by the locals.

Apparently its not normal for the pasty westeners to jump into the pools with all the thai teenagers.  Jesse Scott & myself were posing for pictures at the request of the locals. It was sunch a funny reversal as the tourists becaame the objects of tourism. We of course obliged and had a great time doing it. On the left we have the whole group.

The point of the day was to get to this famous tiger temple. A tourist mecca. a monkish zoo. Whatever, I wasn’t that into it to be honest. The tigers (on chains) are led around for everyone to stroke (firmly), then the tourists are led around (no chains but a firm grip) to touch the individual tigers, while anotrher guide take photos. It might be cruel, It might not be cruel. I havent figued it out.

Far better than chilling with the big Me-ows was watching the deer, hogs, peacocks, hens and horses. These big hogs would make a run for a deer and the deer would chase them off, it was great.

After this long long day, we were tired but we weren’t beaten. We headed home for a shower and a change of clothes, back to May Kaidees again for Veggie foods & Singhas but this time we brought the canucks.

A brilliant day.

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I have decided that Bangkok should be known as the city that ever stops eating. There is more street food here than smog (and thats saying something). On every corner there are 4 or 5 makeshift kitchens on wheels, in prams, on carts or anything else that can support a hot plate or a chopping board. Skewered meats, sliced fruits, barbecued corn, pad thai & sticky sweets. They even have locusts and grubs; and Yes I did partake in a cricket or two but more about that and our crazy night with the 3 canucks later. First we need to talk about the city.

Its big. Bloody big and filled to bursting with cars, mopeds, tuk tuks & pickups. Nobody stops on the street for a pedestrian, you take your chances and roll the dice. The hot fumes ad to the general mugginess and you can literally rub the grime off after a days walking. You will sweat like a miner. (How PC am I?)

We kept mostly to the old city in the few days we were in Bangkok, pounding the pavement & visiting temples. We explored little back alleys where Thais live a kerbside existence, washing cooking & hanging out outside a few dreary rooms, laundry drying on anything that doesn’t move. We spotted rats, bats, roaches and lizards. Cats and dogs are everywhere and seem to live peaceably enough. Perhaps it’s too hot for any rivalries.

The bigger streets & boulevards are quite different, with great swathes cut through the city in honour of the Royals (they’re treated like kings ) and huge portraits everywhere. Lots of greenery & flowers. The middle ground is the best. Busy shop streets where life is really bustling, hawkers & feeders everywhere, pokey little shops for key items such as water and cigarettes.

A highlight for us was the birthday celebrations of the head Monk at one particular temple. 96 years young as the saying goes.

In celebrating, the Monks wanted to give back to the community that looks after them and so were hosting a 3 day festival. A temple festival means free food, lots and lots of it. We joined the locals (for we were the only pasty westeners on show) and wombled around having a bite and taking a few photos. As it was a minor temple it isn’t on the tourist trail and so everyone eyed us curiously. It was a lot of fun. The monks were feeding thousands, all very loaves & the fishes.

We stopped for coffee at a cute little Antique tea shop that was attached to a hostel. Turned out that its rated 5th for boutique hostels in all of Asia (Guardian). The people were so friendly, the girls who served us shared the sweet desert from her own lunch with us.

There are great views over the city at the golden mount (A man made hill with a temple atop) and from high up some of the more exclusive hotels.

Ko San rd is the famous bangkok backpacker heaven. It could be malia or palma, big bars, cheap food, t shirts & tatoos. It is loud and bawdy with a hint of neon but its not as terrible as people say. It is not cool by any stretch but it serves as a centre point from which all travellers can acquire services. We booked our sleeper train tickets to Chang Mai in an Internet Cafe and they had them delivered from the train station in 30 minutes.

Much nicer is the next street along (Rambuttri) where we have eaten 2 of our 4 nights. Great music in the bars and a latin quarter feel to the place. The thais are very musical and phonetically excellent when it comes to singing. Another evening meal was enjoyed in May Kaidees Vegetarian Cookery school. Fantastic. http://www.maykaidee.com/

I like Bangkok. I am not loving it, yet, but we’ll be back a few more times as it will serve as a through route for us on a number of occasions.

Next up I’ll tell you all about the Bridge at the River Kwai, petting tigers and getting drunk with crazy canadians; however a 12 hour train journey is ahead of me so that story will have to wait.

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